Posted on 07/09/2025 1:25:18 PM PDT by CondoleezzaProtege
Americans all too often presume that everyone else aspires to live and think as we do. Others must share our values, if only in secret, or at least be eager to learn them. This is a dangerous attitude to take with any nation or culture, but perhaps especially so with Russians—and never more so than when the topic is war.
As Gregory Carleton observes in his superb 2017 study Russia: The Story of War, war is an indispensable part of how Russians see the world and their place in it. The extent to which World War II and all previous wars extending back a thousand years define Russian national identity is truly astonishing...
Reminders of war are everywhere in Russia. Newlyweds ritually place flowers on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Moscow. I don’t know any American who can identify the day May 9, the anniversary of Nazi Germany’s surrender, but in Russia it is the most important holiday of the year, consecrated by the Russian Orthodox Church...which, even more than Russian Orthodox holidays, unites Russians of all social classes, believers and atheists alike
Wars figure in American history, of course, but they do not define what it is to be an American. (A partial exception may once have been the Civil War in the imagination of some Southerners.)
To appreciate the Russian perspective, we should consider some basic historical facts. Americans were profoundly shocked by our loss of more than 50,000 soldiers in the Vietnam War; in World War II, the toll was approximately 450,000.
Now contrast that with historical memory in Russia. It is impossible to know the Soviet death toll from 1941 to 1945, but it was surely greater than 20 million...Only 3 percent of Russian men born between 1923 and 1924 survived the war...
(Excerpt) Read more at commentary.org ...
Beyond lunacy
We have a military industrial complex. We don’t have war embedded in our emotional and spiritual psyche...
The divide between “civilian” and “military” identity doesn’t really exist in Russia. Whether you’re conscripted or not...The nationalism and how palpable it is in day to day life is different. We arguably have none of that here, to the point where it’s a detriment. Almost nothing civic unites us.
I recommend reading the whole article, it’s by a Russian Literature professor not some policy stooge.
Agreed. Or another way to say it, Russia still honors their past military successes as much as Americans our age and older still honor our past successes. But Russia’s young adults haven’t have been brainwashed by the left to hate all things about their culture that was successful.
Don’t Russians pretty much just live whatever life is available in their particular era while their Tsars or dictators do all their thinking for them and make all the decisions?
it’s not that Russians worship war. It’s that, in Russia, peace sucks.
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Not really. WW II began when Russia and Germany allied together to carve up Poland. Stalin was an arsonist who was nearly consumed by the fire that he helped set. The Poles suffered worse human and material losses than the Russians or anyone else, and Russia survived only due to massive US aid in weapons, food, and finances.
I like that “none” of our wars have been in our backyard. I mean, unless you include Hawaii, Alaska, the Philippines, and Guam, which the Japanese attacked during WWII; Or, Germany sinking merchant ships off our coast and in the Caribbean, during WWII; or, Russia putting nuclear missiles in Cuba and through Cuba sponsoring communist revolutionaries in Latin America, during the Cold War.
Charles Lindbergh was absolutely right that during the time Stalin and Hitler were allies, we should stay the hell out of Europe. The America Firsters started to reconsider isolationism after Hitler defeated France, and especially after their funding from Russia dried up after Hitler turned on Russia.
Commentary Journal
Jewish political magazine
They just do it. A lot. Mostly because they don't know what to do afterwards.
If they ever learned how to do logistics, trusted their military leaders and learned how to develop colonies rather then exploiting them and abandoning them they would have taken over the world by now.
It is a shame, Russia has so much it could give the world if they could ever learn how to get out of their own way.
Interesting read. One but of loose language though: “... in the 18th, it reached the Black Sea while adding western Ukraine and most of Poland.” In the 18th Century there was no nation with “Ukraine” in its name. That did not happen until the 20th Century with the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic.
The Russians provided the bone, the blood, and bodies. 20 million or so. Oh, and the T-34 tank.
The US lost just under 500K men in Europe and Pacific combined. For every American who died, 40 Russians died.
“It’s true that the US provided Russia with Jeeps, Studebaker and Ford trucks, and P40 aircraft, and Spam and flour and gasoline during WWII.”
Hmmmm
Key items supplied by the U.S. to the Soviet Union during WWII include:
Vehicles:
Over 400,000 jeeps and trucks, essential for transportation and logistics.
Aircraft:
14,000 airplanes, including fighters and bombers, played a crucial role in the air war.
Tanks:
13,000 tanks, including M3 Lees and M4 Shermans, provided vital armored support.
Food:
4.5 million tons of food, crucial for sustaining the Soviet population and military.
Raw Materials:
Including copper, steel, aluminum, and cotton, which were essential for manufacturing war materials.
Industrial Equipment:
Including machine tools and other equipment to help the Soviets manufacture their own weapons and equipment.
Other Supplies:
Including medicine, field radios, radar equipment, and even an entire Ford tire factory.
“So true. The Second World War in Europe was won on the backs of the Russians.”
GIVE ME A BREAK!
It was our insdustrial might, our intelligence groups, brave military and a couple of nukes that won the war.
“It is a shame, Russia has so much it could give the world if they could ever learn how to get out of their own way.”
Putin and the oligarchs pocket what Russia can give.
” Oh, and the T-34 tank.”
It was reported that Russia was recalling their WWII T-34 tanks from Indonesia.
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